According to a report, the US tech giant is planning to amplify iPhone production by 30% in the first half of 2021. This is a major update coming from the tech company as the world is still finding it tough to contain the spread of the virus. Apple is preparing to produce 96 million smartphones in the first half of next year due to the extremely high demand for its 5G devices.
iPhone new series, iPhone 12, supports 5G connectivity. This factor is attracting a lot of customers from around the world. When 4G came into the market, the dimensions of technology completely changed. People expect a similar disruption to be caused by 5G services. Apple is one of the most recalled brands in the smartphone domain. Also, if 5G is the future, the next series of phones will be costlier for the customers.
India, the second-largest smartphone market, should be the preferred location for many smartphone OEMs. Apple is no different. Foxconn, Wistron, and Pegatron are Apple’s contract manufacturers which are looking to manufacture the iPhone 12 Series in India. It is quite obvious that if Apple is planning to have a significant 30% increase in their production, some of that has to take place in India as well.
Recently, Wistron, one of Apple’s manufacturers in India, has been in the news. Allegedly, many of the workers have vandalized the factory and even stole a few iPhone products as an act to protest against Wistron’s non-payment for the past four months. The loss estimated by the manufacturer is Rs.50 crore. Earlier they reported this loss to be around Rs 437 crore but later revised their estimate. The central government has asked the state authorities to look into this matter seriously.
Even though this is a big event, we believe that it can be considered as a one-off incident. The government of India is keenly interested to transform India into a manufacturing hub, especially for smartphones. They are already offering financial and other incentives to many companies to set up their production factories in India. Policies like ‘Make in India’ and the ‘PLI scheme’ tells about the commitment from the government.
Apple, being a global company, with the help of the central government, will be able to fend off these issues and focus more on the production part. A larger-scale production in India would mean greater direct and indirect employment for the people of our nation. Also, there will be high chances to correct our trade books if we can export these iPhones as well.
